GRENELEF, Henry

Grenelef is first recorded, in November 1409, serving as a member of a jury in Chichester required to give evidence about the precise amount of money found in a bag in the porch of Colworth church following the arrest of a felon.4 E159/186, recorda Hil. rot. 11. He again appeared as a juror in 1415 and twice more in 1422, these last being for an inquisition post mortem on Margaret, wife of Richard Fust†, and an official inquiry into tenure of the nearby manor of Kingsham.5 C138/11/3, 44/14; C145/302/3. Meanwhile, he had been elected by his fellow merchants as one of the constables of the local staple, a post he was to fill for seven years altogether. It was during his term of office in 1423 that he was returned to Parliament for the city. Grenelef occupied the highest civic office, that of mayor of Chichester, for two consecutive terms in 1425-7, and as such he was sued in the court of common pleas in the spring of 1426, along with William Lede*, one of the bailiffs, John Stere, tanner, and three ‘servants’, for wrongfully taking the goods of Henry Shamelere and William Pypere, worth £80. It seems likely that the defendants had been acting in an official capacity.6 CP40/661, rot. 193. In 1430 Grenelef was attached at the Exchequer to answer for a fine for the escape of a prisoner from his custody when mayor. Over the years he was often recorded as a witness to deeds in Chichester, the last being dated June 1437.7 E159/206, recorda Hil. rot. 10; Suss. Arch. Collns. lxxxix. 133-4, 141.

Grenelef’s property in and near the city included some four and a half acres of arable land outside the north gate, which he obtained in 1429. He probably lived in one of the buildings he and his wife Juliana held in West Street.8 Suss. Arch. Collns. lxxxix. 131, 133; W. Suss. RO, Diocesan recs., Cap. I/15/8. Both he and Juliana were among the executors of Thomas Patching† of Chichester who in the summer of 1432 brought suits in the court of common pleas against the testator’s debtors. In the plea roll Juliana was called alias Juliana Durent, and it seems likely that she was a kinswoman, perhaps even the widow, of Patching, a former mayor who had represented the city in seven Parliaments of the late fourteenth century.9 CP40/686, rot. 255. On a later occasion, in Michaelmas term 1435, Grenelef alone sued a husbandman from Havant for a debt of £10.10 CP40/699, rot. 475d. He died before the summer of 1445, by which date Juliana had married Geoffrey Savage, another Chichester man, who had been a constable of the staple three years earlier. Together with Grenelef’s executors, Robert Seman* and John Stere the tanner, the couple sued William Lede for the sum of £40 owing to the deceased. Grenelef had left a reversionary interest in one of his tenements in West Street to Gillian, widow of the late Robert Halle, but stipulated that if she died before entering into possession the property should be sold by his executors. This Seman and Stere did in November 1447, disposing of the reversion after the death of Juliana Savage to Christine, widow of the MP’s son and namesake. Presumably the younger Henry had died before his father. Juliana sold the tenement next door before May 1448, by which date she too appears to have died.11 CP40/738, rot. 13d; Suss. Arch. Collns. lxxxix. 137; Diocesan recs., Cap. I/15/8.